Holy Handmade by Wallpaper
Themes of worship, ritual and the communal blessed the annual Wallpaper Handmade initiative to stimulate and reify craftsmanship.
Divine design was the order of the day at the eighth annual Wallpaper Handmade exhibition. Celebrating the epitome of craftsmanship as per usual, this year designers were tasked with ritual, worship and the communal as theme. The result was “a non-denominational temple to design, Holy Handmade!” wrote Anthony Joseph Francis Chambers, Editor-in-Excelsis of the illustrious magazine.
“Dogma, deism, devotion. Cult, creed and communion,” Chambers went on to describe the Milan exhibition as “a truly elevating experience. A non-denominational shrine to design, Holy Handmade! leads a ritual celebration of divine inspiration, high craft and the sacred union of miraculous materials, the maker’s mark and the occasional infernal machine.”
From an incense diffuser by Bloc Studios and Haeckels to a confessional veil by the Bouroullecs, from Yves Behar’s Ten Commandments to Tom Dixon’s cardboard sarcophagus, it was clear that designers engaged with the brief in a fun, even irreverent, manner. Towering over the exhibition was a collaboration between Snøhetta, Everything Elevated and Erik Jørgensen Møbelfabrik – Portal, a ladder made to seem infinite by punctuating the top and bottom with mirrors.
Other designers took the opportunity to reify materials, such as the Volcanic Ash Altar by Sabine Marcelis and Made A Mano, and the Dig Deep Offertory Bag made of distinctively cured leathers by Jamie Fobert Architects and Studioart.
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